Verdi: Requiem. Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Riccardo Muti, conductor (CSO Resound).The CSO music director has the full measure of Verdi's great "ecclesiastical opera," while the recording captures the intensity, immediacy and blazing conviction he drew from the Chicago forces.

4

Bruckner: Symphony No. 8. Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rafael Kubelik, conductor (BR Klassik).This live account of Bruckner's greatest symphonic monument, from May 1977, is an eloquent tribute to the art of a beloved former Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director.

"Argerich Plays Chopin." Martha Argerich, piano (DG).Among the discs heralding the Chopin bicentennial, none got my pulse racing faster than these hitherto-unpublished recordings the then-young Argentine pianist made for German radio in 1959 and 1967.

9

Schuman: Symphony No. 8. Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz, conductor (Naxos). The conductor's survey of the published symphonies of William Schuman concludes triumphantly with this brooding and powerful work.

10

"Pierre Boulez and the Lucerne Festival Academy: Inheriting the Future of Music" (EuroArts, DVD).This documentary offers extraordinary insights into Boulez not only as composer and conductor but also as educator, as he works with the gifted young instrumentalists who gather in Lucerne, Switzerland, each summer to learn and perform the most challenging 20th and 21st century music under his direction. With 70 minutes of bonus concert material.